The 1860 Election

In 1860 the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln as
its candidate for president. The Republican platform
declared that slavery could spread no farther, promised a
tariff for the protection of industry, and pledged the
enactment of a law granting free homesteads to settlers who
would help in the opening of the West. Southern Democrats,
unwilling in the wake of the Dred Scott case to accept
Douglas's popular sovereignty, split from the party and
nominated Vice President John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky
for president. Stephen A. Douglas was the nominee of
northern Democrats. Diehard Whigs from the border states,
formed into the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John
C. Bell of Tennessee.

Lincoln and Douglas competed in the North, Breckenridge and
Bell in the South. Lincoln won only 39 percent of the
popular vote, but had a clear majority of 180 electoral
votes, carrying all 18 free states. Bell won Tennessee,
Kentucky, and Virginia; Breckenridge took the other slave
states except for Missouri, which was won by Douglas.
Despite his poor showing, Douglas trailed only Lincoln in
the popular vote.